Remember this?
Perhaps not the world’s most pressing problem, but enough of a problem to be a story at a major news outlet.
Well guess what? Problem solved! At least partially anyway.
Titleist, Nike, Srixon etc., are you paying attention?
Golfing Offspring #2 is taking an engineering class. For their latest project they had to find a real world problem, and propose a solution. And it couldn’t be some ‘if I had all the time and the money in the world’ kind of solution. They had to be able to implement it with materials available, and they had to find market research that showed people would actually pay for it.
After some discussion with her teammates GO#2 and her group decided to solve the problem of littering golf balls. And after 4 weeks of research and design they came up with a solution. Here it is:
You embed an RFID chip in every golf ball, and sell RFID readers that will allow golfers to find their balls.
There is actually a bit more to it than that. For instance did you know that RFID frequencies are heavily regulated? So you have to use a low frequency chip that operates in one of the frequencies that no government is using. Also the chip has to be able to withstand the repeated compression-decompression that happens when the golf ball is hit. It has to be able to transmit a strong enough frequency that it can be read through the coating on the ball. And it has to be able to withstand the temperatures used when the ball is manufactured, and the range of temperatures it could encounter on a golf course. And it had to meet lots of other criteria, which I forget. Anyway, GO#2’s team found just such a chip, commercially available, for 16 cents each. They estimated it would cost around an extra 20 cents a ball to add the chip. Their market research indicated golfers would be willing to pay up to 50 cents more per ball, for a ball fitted with such a chip. A ball that wouldn’t get lost.
Next there is the reader. You need a reader with probably at least a 20 – 50 yard range. It has t be easy to use. And it has to operate within a wide temperature range and be somewhat weather proof. And once again there was other criteria I forget. But GO#2’s team found a commercially available reader that met all their criteria. The only problem with it is it cost $1200. Their market research indicated that golfers wouldn’t pay much over $100 dollars for such a device. But here’s thing. ‘Reader’ is somewhat of a misnomer. Readers do a lot more than read. They store information, show it in tables and lists, and allow you to write information back onto the chip. And lots of other stuff that a golfer, who is looking for a ball that has disappeared into the deep rough, doesn’t need. So if you kept the features of this reader that golfers need, and get rid of the ones they don’t, you should be able to make a much cheaper reader. Hopefully somewhere around the $100 price point.
There are some issues of course. Most golfers play many different balls over the years. Changing when they think some other ball will suit their game better. This means it would be good if all the manufactures could agree on a single frequency so you wouldn’t have to buy a new reader every time you decided to switch balls. And this doesn’t help with balls that are hit into the water. And just because you find your ball in the deep rough doesn’t mean you will be able to hit it out of said rough.
Still, it’s a great idea. Wouldn’t it be nice not to ever have to invoke Rule 27-1 Ball Not Found Within 5 Minutes again? Oh, and there’s that whole littering problem they were solving in the first place.
So, Titleist, Nike, Srixon etc. GO#2 and team would be more than happy to provide you with all their research and their presentation. And they won’t even mind if you don’t put them on the patent, as long as you agree to provide them ( and their nearest and dearest ) with a reader, and a lifetime supply of the new golf balls. Pretty good deal, doncha think? E-mail me. Seriously.
Perhaps not the world’s most pressing problem, but enough of a problem to be a story at a major news outlet.
Well guess what? Problem solved! At least partially anyway.
Titleist, Nike, Srixon etc., are you paying attention?
Golfing Offspring #2 is taking an engineering class. For their latest project they had to find a real world problem, and propose a solution. And it couldn’t be some ‘if I had all the time and the money in the world’ kind of solution. They had to be able to implement it with materials available, and they had to find market research that showed people would actually pay for it.
After some discussion with her teammates GO#2 and her group decided to solve the problem of littering golf balls. And after 4 weeks of research and design they came up with a solution. Here it is:
You embed an RFID chip in every golf ball, and sell RFID readers that will allow golfers to find their balls.
There is actually a bit more to it than that. For instance did you know that RFID frequencies are heavily regulated? So you have to use a low frequency chip that operates in one of the frequencies that no government is using. Also the chip has to be able to withstand the repeated compression-decompression that happens when the golf ball is hit. It has to be able to transmit a strong enough frequency that it can be read through the coating on the ball. And it has to be able to withstand the temperatures used when the ball is manufactured, and the range of temperatures it could encounter on a golf course. And it had to meet lots of other criteria, which I forget. Anyway, GO#2’s team found just such a chip, commercially available, for 16 cents each. They estimated it would cost around an extra 20 cents a ball to add the chip. Their market research indicated golfers would be willing to pay up to 50 cents more per ball, for a ball fitted with such a chip. A ball that wouldn’t get lost.
Next there is the reader. You need a reader with probably at least a 20 – 50 yard range. It has t be easy to use. And it has to operate within a wide temperature range and be somewhat weather proof. And once again there was other criteria I forget. But GO#2’s team found a commercially available reader that met all their criteria. The only problem with it is it cost $1200. Their market research indicated that golfers wouldn’t pay much over $100 dollars for such a device. But here’s thing. ‘Reader’ is somewhat of a misnomer. Readers do a lot more than read. They store information, show it in tables and lists, and allow you to write information back onto the chip. And lots of other stuff that a golfer, who is looking for a ball that has disappeared into the deep rough, doesn’t need. So if you kept the features of this reader that golfers need, and get rid of the ones they don’t, you should be able to make a much cheaper reader. Hopefully somewhere around the $100 price point.
There are some issues of course. Most golfers play many different balls over the years. Changing when they think some other ball will suit their game better. This means it would be good if all the manufactures could agree on a single frequency so you wouldn’t have to buy a new reader every time you decided to switch balls. And this doesn’t help with balls that are hit into the water. And just because you find your ball in the deep rough doesn’t mean you will be able to hit it out of said rough.
Still, it’s a great idea. Wouldn’t it be nice not to ever have to invoke Rule 27-1 Ball Not Found Within 5 Minutes again? Oh, and there’s that whole littering problem they were solving in the first place.
So, Titleist, Nike, Srixon etc. GO#2 and team would be more than happy to provide you with all their research and their presentation. And they won’t even mind if you don’t put them on the patent, as long as you agree to provide them ( and their nearest and dearest ) with a reader, and a lifetime supply of the new golf balls. Pretty good deal, doncha think? E-mail me. Seriously.
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